WWUTT 1750 Q&A Missing Verses (Part 2), Christian Nationalism, Unconfessed Sin

Why does your Bible have missing verses in it? What is Christian nationalism?

And what will happen to us if we are guilty of sins we don't know about and have not confessed? The answers to these questions and others, when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible study, that we may be children of God without blemish, shining as stars in the universe, as we hold out the word of life.

Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com Here once again is

Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky. You're welcome. And nobody else probably noticed this because there was music that was playing underneath you saying that.

But I had that loud Jeep go by right while you were doing that and I'm just frowning at him as he goes by.

My wife's talking. Be quiet. You're so sweet. Well, how are you doing after our trip to Alaska?

Oh, it was refreshing. Little bit wet? Yes, a little bit. It's the rainy season. It is. But we had the dry moments when we absolutely needed that.

That's right. There was sunshine when we needed there to be sunshine. Yeah, it was great. And it was wonderful.

So we want to say thanks to our friends at Faith Bible Fellowship in Big Lake, Alaska.

It was wonderful to be up there and meet you all. And see a couple of our friends up there too. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, friends of ours that actually had been part of our church in Kansas and have moved up to Alaska.

We got to see them and our friend Nathaniel Jolly. And his wife. And his wife who are in Homer, Alaska.

Way down on the, is it the Kenai Peninsula? Was that what it was called? Yeah. Or Ketchikan? No, no, no.

Kenai. Kenai. Okay. Yeah. So way down there on the south end of that peninsula. Uh -huh. And we walked out on the spit.

I like how you said way down south. I was just giggling at that. Way down south. Of Alaska.

Yeah, but Alaska's the size of a country. It is. It is. I can't even tell you the number of times we heard somebody tell us this.

Every time we stood before a map and somebody's telling us about like, you know, the ministry goes here or our business reaches out here, whatever it was.

Every time we're standing in front of a map, somebody said to us, if you were to cut Alaska in half,

Texas would be the third largest state. Yep. We heard that so many times. Yes. And I was ready for it one more time and I wanted to say it with the person when they told us that, but we never heard that again.

I was ready for it. I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to quote it with them this time.

It is huge though. It is big. Because I mean, all of the maps that we get, it always has it cut out and, you know, moved like Hawaii, you know, it's all moved into a different spot, but Hawaii looks like it's about the size of Alaska.

So it's like, you just don't really understand until you're looking at a real map, you know?

Well, I think Hawaii might be actual size and then Alaska is scaled down, so, but yeah, you don't really get the sense of scale when you're looking at a map of the

U .S. Oh, not at all. Alaska is like a third the size of California, you know, right down here. Yeah.

It's just crazy. But it was gorgeous. It was beautiful. Beautiful up there. We got to see a moose and we got to taste a moose.

Not the same moose. No, not the same moose. And it was dead. It was put in a, there was one in a meatball and then there was one in like a casserole.

And then we got to taste caribou and salmon. It was really fun.

It was great. And people up there were amazing. Yes, we thank you so much to everybody who welcomed us warmly and showed us around, took us flying.

Yes. Because everybody gets around by like boat or plane up there. That was awesome.

It was good to hear about the Kingdom Air Corps. Yeah, Kingdom Air Corps, great ministry up there, which happens to have a location just like an hour from where we live in Texas.

Yep. I didn't even know it was there. Yeah. So that was pretty neat. Really, really neat.

Well, thank you so much to everybody. And remember, as we said before we left for Alaska, if you just offer us pizza, we'll come somewhere.

And we did. We did get pizza. We got pizza. It was like our last day there. They held on to us until the last day.

Yeah. And then we got our pizza. And we were like, oh, I'm sorry. We just got pizza.

It's like, no, that's great. Yeah, that's exactly what we were missing. It was fabulous.

On the Friday edition of the broadcast, we respond to questions from listeners and you can send your questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Now, babe, I'm hoping we have enough time at the end here. We have some miscellaneous questions to get to.

But we still have to finish up the verses of the Bible that are missing from the

Bible. Yes. Those missing verses. The verses that are not in the, but they're from the

Bible. Well, they're not really from the Bible. That's a little tough. They're not in the original, not in the original text.

There you go. And there's some modern translations in which you won't find those verses. I've been reading from the

English Standard Version because that's the easiest one to go to. Some translations like the New American Standard or the

Legacy Standard will put the verse that was not in the original text. They'll put it in brackets.

Oh, yeah. OK. So you'll have the number there. The numbers will still be in succession, but there will be some sort of note that this verse was not in the original text.

I have dyslexia, so I am not paying attention to anything other than the words and the periods.

And that's it. Right. So it's just sort of, I think I've overlooked that in my

Bible. I'll have to check that out. Why are these verses missing? Well, a King James only us will tell you that the modern translations are corrupt and they're trying to like remove certain doctrines.

No, most of these verses appear somewhere else in the New Testament. Yes. It's just that some overzealous scribe has taken it upon themselves to take like a verse that appears in Matthew, but that parallel passage in Mark doesn't have the same verse in Matthew.

So they'll try to carry that over and write that in there. And sometimes it's just to further explain what's going on.

Yeah, right. They feel like, yeah, this needs some help. And yeah, they'll add a few extra words in there.

But it was not what Matthew originally wrote or Mark originally wrote. Right. So we've been through the

Matthew and Mark passages. So far we've covered Matthew 17, 21, 18, 11 and 23, 14.

Then there's also Mark 7, 16, 9, 44, 9, 46, 11, 26 and 15, 28.

And then we also covered the Mark and appendix. Right. So now we're up to Luke and there's only one in Luke.

Okay. So we're going to Luke chapter 17. You got that up in front of you there?

Yes, I do. So Luke 17. On my handy dandy app. And I'm going to begin reading in verse 30.

So this is where Jesus is talking about the revealing of the Son of Man. So it will be on the day when the

Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let the one who is on the housetop with his goods in the house not come down to take them away.

And likewise, let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it.

But whoever loses his life will keep it. I tell you in that night, there will be two in one bed.

One will be taken in the other left. There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken in the other left.

And they said to him, where Lord? And he said to them, where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

What verse was missing there? 36. Verse 36. Two men will be in the field.

One will be taken and the other left. Where have you heard that before? That's in the parallel passage in Matthew 24.

Yeah, I was thinking it was in Matthew. Yeah. Luke just doesn't include that. Right. So again, some scribe decided.

Oh, you know what, Luke? Yeah, you just you needed to share notes with Matthew.

Yeah. So let me help you out. And grabbing that verse and bringing it over. That may not have been his intention.

Of course. He thought he was doing the right thing. Filling it out just like it looks over in Matthew. But it wasn't the way that Luke wrote this account of Jesus telling his disciples about the revealing of the

Son of Man. Could it be that? I mean, I'm sure they've had it written out.

But could it be that it was just word of mouth? And then they remembered that story differently. So they wrote it.

Like Luke remembered it? No, no, no. The overzealous. Oh, no, they would have been copying.

Oh, they would have copied manuscripts. So it wouldn't have been like a mistake on their part. Okay. So they were just doing it.

Very, very unlikely. Yeah, very unlikely that he's got it memorized and he's just standing there writing all that out.

Just checking. Okay. Yeah. So because this edition did not happen until like six or 700 years after.

That's true. The gospel was written. Okay. Fair enough. But it was added in there before we came up with the number system.

So then after chapters and numbers had been or chapter and verses had been assigned to the text.

And that's been translated for, you know, over and over and over again. Right. And now you come to find out when we're looking at other manuscripts that are older than the manuscripts that were used to translate like the

Geneva Bible or the King James Bible or the Wycliffe Bible. Yeah. And we look in and we realize, oh, there are some verses that are added in here that weren't in the oldest text.

So we take those out and then it looks like a big conspiracy. Somebody's removing verses from the

Bible. The Bible says, don't do that. In today's society, it is good to question things like that.

Well, we're told in First Thessalonians 5, test everything. That is true. So that's the one in Luke.

That's the only one in Luke. Now we go to John. Let's turn over to John 5. How many does

John have? John only has one. What? But we have the pericope adultery in John as well.

Oh, OK. And I'll get to that here after we look at John 5. So this is the story of the man who is at the pool of Bethesda.

He's lame. There's a lot of people who are lame there. They go down into the waters believing that the waters will give them healing.

But there's only one man that Jesus goes to and tells him to take up his mat and walk.

I was going to clarify for the younger listeners that lame does not mean boring. Lame means that they're not physically able to in one way or another.

Like a leg is broken or something. Sure, but isn't lame like our generational word?

I don't think little kids out there are using lame. I don't know. Are they? I don't know. I don't know either. You hang out with more kids than I do.

Yeah, but I also have my own brain and stuff goes on up there. I don't know if they use a different word.

All right. So this guy's a loser. He's lame. No. Yes, he can't walk.

He is physically unable to walk. So here we go. John chapter five. I'm going to start reading in verse one.

After this, there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the

Sheep Gate, a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.

In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him,

Do you want to be healed? The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up and while I am going another steps down before me.

Jesus said to him, Get up, take up your bed and walk. And at once the man was healed and he took up his bed and walked.

What verse was missing? Four. Verse four. For an angel of the

Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred the water. Whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.

Yeah. There's a lot of detail in that. There is. There's an angel that goes into the water and stirs it up.

So that a person, whoever goes down into the water and they think that they will be healed.

Okay. But John didn't write that. So someone had added that into the text, but it wasn't from the apostle

John. Strange. Yep. And they didn't get that anywhere else in the Bible. Nope, that one's not from anywhere else.

Because this story only appears in John 5. Right. Yeah. That's weird. It is a strange one.

Okay, now let's go over to John 8. All right. Now, John did not write this.

And at one point, this particular story was in Luke. Okay. Different gospels.

So we have the story of the woman caught in adultery. Now, I'm not going to read this whole thing because it's 11 verses. But John 8, you know the story.

The woman that gets brought to Jesus. The law says, this woman who's been caught in adultery, she must be stoned.

Jesus says, let he who is without sin be the first to cast the stone at her. And then they drop their rocks and split.

Right. This is the abridged Gabe version. And then Jesus says to the woman, where are they who are to condemn you?

And she says, nowhere, Lord. And he says, neither do I condemn you. Now go and sin no more. It's a great story, but John didn't write it.

Okay. And like I said, there was at another point, a time when this story was in a different gospel.

And it wasn't in John. It may have been some sort of an oral tradition kind of a thing.

And like I've shared before about these scribes could have been written in a margin. And somebody just decided they love that story.

Yeah. And so they brought it from the margin right over into the text and made it part of the text. But John didn't write this.

Well, I mean, Jesus did a lot more miracles than what were recorded in the Bible. That's in John.

Right. Yeah. At the end of John, it says. Many, many more. Exactly. If all of the things that Jesus did in his earthly ministry had been written down, there would not even be enough books to contain all the things that he did.

Right. John says that it's possible. It's possible. Was one. Right. It's possible that the story is true, but it was not written by John.

Interesting. And I'm with James White. Okay. I don't think the story should be in there. If sometime and when we went through John together, when

I did my study through John, it's just a few years ago now on the podcast. But when I went through John, I had said, if you get the opportunity, if you're studying through the

Gospel of John, ignore John 7, 52, 53.

Right. Okay. John 7, 53 through 8, 11. Just ignore it. Read through John 7.

And then at the end of the chapter, at verse 52, jump over to John 8, 12 and continue reading.

Yeah. Mine even says in brackets the earliest, like in the writing, I don't have to pick,

I don't have to click on one of the numbers or anything. It says in the writing, it says in brackets, the earliest manuscripts do not include 7, 53 through 8, 11.

Yeah. And most texts will have that. Oh, really? Most Bibles will have some sort of a note in there. Because it's not just one verse that they're like, let's leave it in there for confusion's sake or what?

For confusion's sake. So people won't get confused. But if it's just one verse, you're not going to really notice.

I mean, I had to go back and search for some of those. Yeah. That's a pretty substantial chunk of text. Yeah. You can't really put that down in a footnote.

8, 12. Like, you know, like, let's just start this at 8, 12. But going back to the exercise

I mentioned, if you read it going from John 7 to 8, 12, it flows better.

You will notice, you'll notice like, oh, yeah, that sounds way better. It's kind of weird that the action stops to talk about this story of the woman caught in adultery.

If you read through John 7 and 8 ignoring that story, the text flows together way better.

Oh, interesting. So you can tell something's been stuck in there that kind of messes up. It's even on like a different day.

So it's, it's... Messes with the flow, huh? Yeah, it just doesn't fit. Interesting. I'll have to do that.

That's not one of the missing texts. I wasn't including that as a missing text. Because it's there. Because it's there.

That's just a bonus for you. But it should be missing. That's right. Yeah, I don't think it should be there. Let's do the next one here.

Oh, well, no, this next one we already did. So this was what started the whole thing was Acts 8, 37. Oh, yeah.

That was the question we originally got from Angie. I should have started with Angie's question in the beginning.

Oh, well, go ahead and hit that up now. I enjoyed the explanation of missing verses in the Bible, but I was disappointed that you only covered one of them.

That was when we went through Acts 8, 37. Could you go through the other 15 Bible verses and explain why they don't belong in the text?

So, again, if you look at Acts 8, we'll do that one real quick. I'm not there.

Acts 8, 37. I'm one page over. Here we go.

So Philip opened his mouth beginning with the scripture. He told the Ethiopian eunuch the good news about Jesus.

And they were going along the road and they came to some water. And the eunuch said, see, here is water.

What prevents me from being baptized? What's missing is verse 37. Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may.

And the eunuch replied, I believe that Jesus is the son of God. And now verse 38. And he commanded the chariot to stop.

And they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. So that was some scribe stuck in there.

Something you don't even get that from another verse in the Bible. He just tried to fill out the story a little bit more.

But it was not what Luke wrote when he originally wrote Luke. Or when he originally wrote

Acts. Got it. The next one's in Acts 15. So we go from here over to Acts 15.

Okay. Acts 15.

And I'm going to begin reading in verse 30. So this is after the

Jerusalem council. Okay. And the apostles and those who are there have decided what to say to the

Gentiles. Who have been told by the Judaizers that they have to be circumcised in order to be saved.

Oh, okay. So this letter that they come up with that's going to go to the Gentiles. It says, you must abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and what has been strangled and from sexual immorality.

If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell. So Paul and Barnabas are taking this letter.

They go down to Antioch and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement.

And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words.

And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained at Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the

Lord with many others also. What verse was missing out of that?

Verse 34. But it seemed good to Silas to remain there.

That's almost like a commentary note. Like it's something a preacher would say as he's preaching this text.

And say, now he didn't go with Paul and Barnabas. The understanding here would be that Silas remained at Antioch.

He might make a comment like that. There's another one in Acts. I think we've got a couple more here.

So Acts 24. And again, that's a comment that's pretty harmless.

It doesn't twist any doctrine or anything like that. But as we're talking about being as accurate to the original text as possible,

Luke didn't write that. So we're not going to include that. Acts 24. Let me begin reading in verse.

Well, I may as well start at the top. Okay. So this is Paul. He's been arrested by the

Hebrews. He has to appear before Felix. The priests, the Pharisees, they're going to be making their case against Paul before the governor.

So in chapter 24, verse 1. After five days, the high priest Ananias came down with some elders and a spokesman, one

Tertullus. They laid before the governor their case against Paul. And when he had been summoned,

Tertullus began to accuse him, saying, Since through you we enjoy much peace, and since by your foresight, most excellent

Felix, reforms are being made for this nation, in every way and everywhere we accept this with all gratitude.

But to detain you no further, I beg you in your kindness to hear us briefly, for we have found this man a plague, one who stirs up riots among all the

Jews throughout the world and is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. He even tried to profane the temple, but we seized him.

By examining him yourself, you will be able to find from him about everything of which we accuse him.

What verse was missing? Verse 7. But the chief captain Lysias came and with great violence took him out of our hands, commanding his accusers to come before you.

So we have verses 7 and 8 there. Now you still have a verse 8, but it's only a portion of 8.

Mine starts with verse 6 even. It kind of finishes off the verse 6. Oh yeah,

I didn't start early enough. So some manuscripts add, we would have judged him according to our law, but the chief captain

Lysias came and with great violence, da da da da da. So that happened previously in the story, and it's like whatever scribe was copying this just took that, stuck it there, when it didn't need to be there, and it wasn't what

Luke originally wrote in that section. Right. Okay. That's what happened with that passage.

All right, one more in Acts. Let's go to chapter 28, very last chapter. They were pretty zealous in this book.

So this is Paul preaching in Rome. He has shared his testimony. He shared the gospel. There are many who come to faith, but there are many who do not believe.

And to them, Paul says in verse 25, the Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, go to this people and say, you will indeed hear, but never understand, you will indeed see, but never perceive.

For this people's heart has grown dull and with their ears, they can barely hear and their eyes they have closed.

Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn and I would heal them.

Therefore, let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles.

They will listen. He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the

Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. What verse was missing?

29. Verse 29. And when he had said these words, the

Jews departed having much dispute among themselves. And that's it.

Yeah. Well, I mean. Not a necessary note there. Right. And wasn't the way that Luke concluded that little dialogue.

Yeah. I mean, it's kind of implied. That the Jews walked away and didn't believe.

And we're grumping about it. And we've seen that happen. We've seen that happen many times. That's right.

Yeah. All right. So that's all of Acts. We finally finished Acts. Okay. We did the whole book. That was the last verse in Acts.

Nowhere for us to go. Let's go to Romans. Turn to Romans chapter 16. Last chapter of Romans.

Romans 16. Now, this is the final instructions. Paul gives greetings from certain persons.

And then we conclude with this wonderful doxology. Let me start in verse 21.

Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you. So do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen.

I, Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. He would have been Paul's scribe. Okay. Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you.

Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus greet you. Now to him who was able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal

God to bring about the obedience of faith. To the only wise

God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen. I just had to read that whole doxology.

I was wondering. What verse was missing? 24. 24, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Amen. Yeah, amen. But there's not a reason to have to put that. No, and it's kind of a weird place to put it.

Yeah, because we still have the doxology, which concludes with an amen. Yeah, that's what

I was thinking. It's a common way Paul concludes his letters by saying the grace of Christ be with you all.

Sure. He doesn't finish Romans that way. So, but he has this great doxology.

Why do you need to stick that in there? To make a conclusion where there's already a conclusion. Yeah, it's kind of like a

PS, you know. Now let's go to 1 John. This is one of the most complicated.

Oh, okay. But I'm not going to go into great detail I know James White's talked about it quite a bit. The, I can't remember the name of it though, like the

Latin name for it. Okay. Anyway, let's look at 1 John 5, the

Johannium something, because that's the name for John. Oh, okay. 1

John 5, I'm going to begin reading in verse 6. This is he who came by water and blood,

Jesus Christ, not by the water only, but by the water in the blood. And the spirit is the one who testifies because the spirit is the truth.

For there are three that testify, the spirit and the water in the blood, and these three agree.

If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has born concerning his son.

Whoever believes in the son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe

God has made him a liar because he has not believed in the testimony that God has born concerning his son.

What was missing? I have no idea. That's right. You missed it, didn't you?

No numbers were missing in there. It was just consecutive. Yeah.

6, 7, 8, 9, 10. I don't have any numbers to like poke at.

Verses 7 and 8 shouldn't be there. Oh. Even in the English Standard Version, they're there.

Yeah. But verses 7 and 8 shouldn't be there. John didn't write them. That's why

I said this is complicated. There's nothing to mark that they shouldn't be there. Nothing's in the footnotes either. Okay.

But that was not written by John. Okay. And like I said, this is a very controversial passage and I'm not going to go into all of the everything about that because James White has done entire dividing line episodes over that and fighting with the

King James Only -us about that. But that was added in at a later time. It wasn't what originally appeared in that text.

All right, there you go. There's your 16. Well, there you go. 16 passages in the

Bible that don't belong there. They were added by overzealous scribes and then as a bonus, we threw in the

Marken Appendix and the Pericopaea Adultery. There you go. Well, thank you for your question,

Angie. Yeah. Took a couple of episodes. That was neat. Yep, we got through all of those and now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

I could not help myself. All right, let's see if we can get through.

Thank you. Let's see if we can do some of these miscellaneous questions here. Sure. This one is from, oh, well, this has to do with the most recent

What video I did on Christian nationalism which just released yesterday. Here's the video and then

I'll answer the question about it. I have a good sag here after we finished doing the

Bible verses. We'll play a What video and then come into the questions. All right. And if I'd been thinking ahead,

I would have thought of that earlier. Yeah, well, you know. Here we go. What is

Christian nationalism? The term is often used derisively to discourage mixing

Christianity and politics, but actually defining it has mixed results. Christianity Today said that it's the belief that the

American nation is defined by Christianity and that the government should take active steps to keep it that way.

But wouldn't that be a good thing? Pastor Grant Gaines said that it's imposing distinctly

Christian morals on society. He said that they wrote the book on Christian nationalism, which they call white

Christian nationalism, because if there's a group you want people to hate, make them racists. In Gorski's sleepy talk at Yale Divinity School, he droned on for an hour about Christian nationalism without defining it, but said that half of America affirms it.

Affirms what? Well, whatever evangelical Republicans believe in and vote for.

If you believe abortion is murder and should be illegal and homosexuals grooming kids should be tried as pedophiles, you're a scary

Christian nationalist. But when Kamala Harris broadcasts into hundreds of black churches to tell them who to vote for, or she says

Jesus wants you to get vaccinated, that's not Christian nationalism. There is no consistent definition of Christian nationalism.

It's a Marxist strategy to deconstruct Christianity, and part of that strategy is for you to not know what it is.

Sadly, too many Christians are chasing this boogeyman, condemning Christian nationalism but not global secularism.

All politics should be subject to faith in Jesus Christ, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.

Psalm 2228 says, and he rules over the nations when we understand the text.

I like the music in that one. Me too, I was thinking the same thing. That's a good groove. You could have even got peppier with it, you know?

Becky's dancing. Y 'all can't see, y 'all cannot see Becky's white girl dance here.

You know, doing that really doesn't, it really doesn't fill a picture out at all. However, those that know me are dancing with me.

So following that video, Brent emailed and said, hey Gabe, I'm not sure what everyone else is talking about, but originally

Christian nationalism is actually the idea of Christians putting America before God and saying things like America is

God's nation. It usually comes with the idolizing of politicians. That at least is how it started.

Honestly, it sounds like from your video it got hijacked by folks who had no idea what they were talking about.

A little bit deeper look. Usually said Christians are willing to not follow the Bible and it's basically what we see all over America where when it comes to politics, suddenly

Americans decide God doesn't need to be a part of it. That is at least how it started.

What it became isn't what I had heard. The first time I heard from it was when a strident conservative coined the term to describe the man, describe a

Christian, the wording is a little funny here, but anyway, describe a Christian who had this heavily devout worship of Donald Trump.

I honestly hate to bring that up because so far I figured he didn't matter anymore and I'm glad for that, but perhaps we should just go back to what it is originally, idolatry.

Well, I appreciate that, Brent. I really had never heard the term Christian nationalism at least had paid no attention to it.

If I had heard the term before, it was framed in a right enough context that I never had to ask a question about it, but it's only been in the last couple of years that we've heard this term

Christian nationalism and it being used to describe a Christian who takes his

Christian faith and combines it with his politics. So if he's voting his faith, he's a

Christian nationalist. No matter what it is, everybody votes what they believe in. I mean, you should.

And every nation, every nation is a theocracy. What God do you worship?

What God is that nation in submission to? Is it the one true God or is it the pagan gods that most everybody else worships?

This whole thing of like, well, we can't make America a theocracy. America's already a theocracy. Every nation's a theocracy.

It's the one true God. And every country works differently because of that. Yeah. We need to be in submission to the one true

God. Our laws need to be conformed to his law. That's not Christian nationalism.

That's just being a Christian. If somebody is going to exalt Donald Trump or they're going to exalt

America over being a Christian, like their Christianity is defined by what it means to be an

American rather than the Bible. That's idolatry. And we can call it idolatry. We don't need the term

Christian nationalism. And where you see somebody teaching wrongly, correct that. Call it out and say, no, that's wrong.

That's not according to what scripture says. But we have everything being lumped into these categories that aren't being defined.

And the people that are trying to hijack Christianity or stop any progression of Christianity is to their advantage to not have to define their terms.

To make them define their terms. What is a woman? I mean, they can't even define what a woman is.

And they refuse to. Yes, it's bizarre. But thank you for your email. I get where you're coming from.

But the way that we're hearing the term Christian nationalism used and the books that are being published, it is to put down any

Christian that would use their faith to guide their politics. But as it says in Romans 14, whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

So our politics have to be in submission to our faith. It is by faith in Jesus Christ. He rules over this nation whether the nation submits to him or not.

Very, very true. And you're so emphatic about it that it's just bam. Right. I'm getting so gesturing here that I knocked my microphone.

All right, this next one. This was not a question that was submitted to us. I grabbed this off of social media.

OK. But I felt like it was kind of a fun talking point. Sure. That's why I grabbed it. This is from Megan in West Virginia.

OK. And she said, I was under the impression that three children is a fairly average number. But in the past few weeks,

I've heard people saying that three is a lot and crazy. And wow, they have a bunch of kids.

Now, we have five children. We do. In case you don't know. Now, when I saw that comment, though, I thought this is why this would be a good talking point for us.

Three was our hardest number. Oh, yes, for sure. Two is hard. Don't get me wrong, because I had the oldest was slow and you had to really prep and push and let's get out the door, you know, tell her an hour and a half ahead of time that we're leaving now.

Right. And then along comes number two and he's like out the door an hour and a half early.

I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, but he was still he was still pretty chill. He was.

I caught him and I have not caught any other child in the car as often as I did him.

Well, that's true. He was gone. I mean, Zej had a lot of activity. He did. But we still had our first two kids were still pretty too chill children.

And I had one hand for each of them. They put the chill in children. They did.

Yeah, they did. That's right. We had one child in this arm and another child in this arm. And then three came along.

And then we didn't have it. But but no other arm came along. Right. With that child.

This is precisely why I don't do not believe in evolution.

Because the moment. Because where is my other arm? That's right. The moment parents started having more than two kids, another arm should have sprouted out along with that.

Seriously. Yeah. Three was the most difficult. Now, our our third child was colic.

Yes. And so she had to be held all the time. Well, didn't have to, but it was just to keep the peace.

Yeah. It was just crazy if you didn't. But even even so, it was still like after she outgrew that it was still tough.

Right. There was still something about three. It was like, why? Why wasn't it this hard when we added a second one?

And now we have our third child. And it's like everything is five times harder than it was before. Yes. But then when four came along, it was a little easier.

It was just like, hey, a fourth child. Yay. Yeah. Yeah. And then when we had our fifth one, it was like, oh boy.

Well, it was. And he was a boy. Yeah. And a smiling one at that.

Yeah. He is. He is precious. Yeah. Every child we've added since then is just like we just have another child in our family.

And and every child that comes along, it feels like that child's always been there. Yes. We've always been a family of seven.

Yes. Yeah. I know. It's it's it's strange to talk about it, but it's just so natural.

Yeah. It's like, there we go. We're a family of seven. It's good. Yeah. Just like we always have been.

Yes. And now we were meant to be. I can't remember it back in the day. But anyway, I thought about bringing that up when

I saw that comment. I was like, I can kind of sympathize with those people that think three is a lot because three seemed to be the hardest for us.

And three, three don't fit in the cart anymore. Well, that's right.

Take two carts. That's right. Yeah, because one's for the children and one's for your stuff that you're going to buy.

You know what I mean? Like it's and then three, like you can have two right on the stroller, but the third one, what are they going to do?

Right. So it you just you and the car, you really have to figure it out. Yeah. In the car.

I mean, you've got three seatbelts back there, but it's you shove them in. Yeah, it's still not easy.

There's sardines at that point. You're starting to realize, oh, it's minivan time or SUV, you know, but minivan seems to be easier because the doors don't go out as wide.

Anyway, that's a whole other subject and they don't drink as much gas. The minivan doesn't consume as much gas as the

SUV. This is true. We were with a family recently who had the big suburban. Ah, which is what is it now?

GMC makes the Yukon. So it's not the suburban anymore. They have the Yukon, which is like the level up from that.

It's achievement unlocked Yukon. But just looking at that, just looking at that vehicle, it was just huge.

And I was thinking that just has to that gas bill's got to be a lot. Yeah. Well, the tank is also bigger.

So, you know, well, you just cry a little less often. You cry when you fill it up, but not as often.

OK, I get it. That was decent. Sorry. All right.

I think we can get we can get a couple more questions in here. This is from Michelle. OK. Am I as a believer accountable for what

I do not know? How can I repent if I do not know?

do not know that I am sinning, for example. Well, that was something David prayed.

I mean, he asked that God would reveal to him his sins so that he could confess his sin and that he would grow in holiness before the

Lord. Psalm 139, verses 23 and 24, search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

And there's other places in the Psalms where David says something similar. And I'm thinking back to even before all that, whenever you first heard the gospel and you repented.

I mean, you repented of all those sins. So aren't you forgiven of all those sins?

Yes, and you didn't know you were sinning before that. I mean, maybe you did, but you don't really understand that until you're saved.

You might've been convicted over something, but conviction doesn't lead to repentance unless it's the

Holy Spirit. It's like Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians, there's a grief that leads to death, but then there's a godly grief that leads to repentance.

So you can be grieved over stupid stuff you've done, but that doesn't mean you're forgiven for that. It's turning to Christ and knowing it is only

Jesus who forgives us of our sins. And when he forgives you your sins, it's all your sins.

Even the ones you haven't confessed. But still 1 John - That you're unaware of.

That's right. Still 1 John 1 .9 says that if we ask forgiveness for our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So we should still confess our sins to God. James 5 says, confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed.

But let's say there is a sin you did today and you don't even know that you sin. Because like I said, from Romans 14, whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

So what have you done today that was not loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength?

Is God writing that down in a ledger somewhere and then on the day of judgment he's gonna hold you accountable for that?

There's gonna be an understanding of those things when we come into glory, but it's not gonna keep you out of the kingdom of God.

There will be sins that we did not repent of when we walk through those pearly gates and God is gonna receive us into his eternal kingdom anyway.

That's because of his grace, to the praise of his glorious grace. Not because we did anything to earn that place with him in glory, but because he was gracious to welcome us in.

Which is why even our greatest deeds are like filthy rags to him. That's right,

Isaiah 64, six. So rejoice in that, Michelle, rejoice in God. And pray as David prayed, if there is anything in me that I don't know of, any sin that I have yet to confess, show it to me and may that be your desire because you wanna be holy.

You wanna be like Jesus. But don't fall into despair over those things that you don't think that you've properly confessed.

Rejoice in the grace of God that he gives to you every day. His mercies are new every morning.

Amen, that's a good place to stop. All right, thank you so much for listening.

Yes, thank you. And if you have any questions you'd like to submit to the program, the email address is whenweunderstandthetextatgmail .com.

Let's pray. Yes, let's. Heavenly father, we thank you for the goodness you show to us. We thank you for your grace.

And we pray along with David, know our heart, try us and know our thoughts.

If there's any grievous or sinful way in us, may we become aware of it, that we may repent of it, lay it before the

Lord, be forgiven, have our hearts restored, create in me a clean heart, oh

God, and renew a right spirit within me and lead me in the way everlasting.

Thank you for the gospel of Christ that was given to us that we may know your son,

Jesus Christ and the salvation that has been given to us by faith in him. He who died on a cross for us, who rose again from the dead, who ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, who is coming back to judge the living and the dead.

Knowing that all who are without Christ are under that judgment, give us boldness to share the gospel even in the midst of this wicked generation.

May we shine like stars in the universe. We ask these things in Jesus name, amen.